"I said he's gonna have to face it," Nichols recalls. "He said, 'I know, but now? You sure?' He knew instantly it would be . . . what is the word . . . expensive. Emotionally, it would cost him. It's very hard to do that every night, twice on Saturday. But he finally figured he's gotta do it. It's like a mountain that's gotta be climbed."

The revival of "Salesman," opening at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre Thursday, boasts a pedigree cast, including veteran stage actress Linda Emond as Willy's wife, Linda, and -- as prodigal son, Biff -- Andrew Garfield, an award-winning English-trained actor known in the United States for his work in "The Social Network," and starring this summer as Peter Parker in "The Amazing Spider-Man."

"Salesman" usually draws big names. What's new this time is the audience.

"It's about right now," says Nichols. "About everybody on Facebook. The Kardashians. Everybody who wants to be known."

The tale follows Loman, an aging salesman, and his wife and two sons, who fear he's losing it. There are nasty family secrets. Miller's revolutionary idea was to tell the story out of order, with Loman drifting in and out of memories.

"Salesman" was a sensation, earning six Tony Awards. Miller nabbed a Pulitzer Prize. And the play became required reading in high school and college.

"Yet like any great play, you can't fully appreciate it till you see it onstage," says Erik Brogger, a playwright and associate professor in the creative writing concentration at Hofstra University.

Bad local productions didn't help. Just YouTube "Death of a Salesman" and you find all sorts of stagings. (The worst must be Kevin Kline's droll spoof of "Salesman" dinner theater, in the 1991 film "Soapdish," with Kline wiping up spilled drinks mid-performance.)

Brogger eventually grew into the play, and has taught it in class.

"At first I identified with Biff," he says. "Later, with Willy's sense of betrayal by a world he no longer understands." Today's American workers increasingly feel "insulted, disregarded. So while nobody knows what's inside Willie's briefcase -- we don't know what he sells -- we can all identify with his struggle."

"He's like, 'I got one suit -- you have dresses and wigs and things,' " she recalls. It's become a cast hangout. They wind down. Laugh. A lot. By end of show, there's relief, she says, but also joy at getting to work on "a great play . . . one of the greatest."

It's Loman, not 'low man'

Despite its greatness, misconceptions prevail.

Miller found it discouraging that various commentators "smirked at the heavy-handed symbolism of 'Low-man.' " He explained in his 1987 autobiography, "Timebends," the name Loman actually sprang from a character -- who calls out the name "Lohmann" -- in the 1933 Fritz Lang film, "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse." Lohmann, a police chief, never hears the cry. "What the name really meant to me," wrote Miller, "was a terror-stricken man calling into the void for help that will never come."

Nichols says he believes in knowing the true origins of a play, but hopes this production feels fresh.

"It'll always be different when another bunch of people has a whack at it," he says. "That's one of the joys of a great play."

Except, perhaps, if you're Philip Seymour Hoffman, in previews, fine-tuning what may be the most challenging male role in American theater.

So you hold off giving interviews till the play opens, when you'll have energy to focus on things besides . . . being Willy Loman. Of course, as your friend, Mike, puts it, we're all a little bit Willy.

"We're all salesman," Nichols says. "Listen, I'm selling right now. Who are we kidding?"

Sampling Willy Loman

BY ANN SILVERBERG, ann.silverberg@newsday.com

When attention must be paid to Willy Loman, viewers can turn to CDs, videos and DVDs available for sale online and for free at some public libraries. Extensive (and in some cases complete) selections also are readily available on YouTube.

Here are some to check out:

The 1951 film of "Death of a Salesman," directed by László Benedek, starring Fredric March as Willy, Mildred Dunnock (the Broadway original) as Linda, Kevin McCarthy as Biff and Cameron Mitchell as Happy.

A 1966 CBS television production, with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock reprising their original Broadway roles as Willy and Linda, George Segal as Biff and James Farentino as Happy.